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Tuesday 28 February 2017

Quotes 1 Mar 17 (socialism 4)

This is the last in this political series. It is probably my last post for a couple of days or so as I am due for surgery. Christian quoter: Diary 26 to 28 Feb 17 - awaiting surgery


To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to eacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.
-- James Bovard (1956), _Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen_ (1999)

Father: You see, son, we live in a liberal democratic society. The Democrats created sexual harassment law, which tells us what we can and cannot say in the workplace, anwhat we can and cannot do in the workplace.
     Kyle: But isn’t that fascism?
     Father: No, because we don’t call it fascism. -- From a few years ago on South Park

Socialism seeks to appeal to the common man through envy, it appeals to the statesman and the aspiring statesman through the lust for power, it appeals to the academic and the intellectual with the promise of patronage (he no longer has to strive to produce within the "vulgar" free market that does not appreciate his ability, and that reduces everything to a matter of practical value). It keeps everyone else in line with guilt or force.
--a New Yorker

Whenever I hear the Left speak, I am reminded of the old adage: “If your cause relies on fighting a particular enemy, it’s not in your interest to let that enemy die.--speech by Marine Marechal-Le Pen in French Assemblee Nationale 26 Jan. 2017

Monday 27 February 2017

Quotes 28 Feb 17 (socialism 3)

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures. --George Orwell (1903-1950), "The Prevention of Literature", _Polemic_ (January 1946)

If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism and innumerable other ambitious notions favored by the political left. --Thomas Sowell (1930-), "Don't Be So Sure", _National Review_ May 16, 2007 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/220951/dont-be-so-sure-thomas-sowell

It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects’ minds, beliefs, and opinions. If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the case for censorship, inquisition, intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters. -Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), _Human Action_

Sunday 26 February 2017

Quotes 27 Feb 17 - socialism (2)

I grew up in a socialist country. And I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom. No pride in achievement. The nation became poorer and poorer. And that's what I see happening here. -- Thomas Peterffy (1941-), a self-financed political ad October 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnX7TNFIELg&feature=player_embedded

The Socialist says we have too many capitalists. I say we have too few.  The scattering of capital among a great many will solve the problem. --G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) _As I Was Saying: A Chesterton Reader_ [1985], Chapter 17

All socialism involves slavery. What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave’s actions—a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another’s desires. -Herbert Spencer (1820-1902), "The Coming Slavery", _The Contemporary Review_, April 1884, reprinted in his book _Man Versus the State_ (1884) https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/all-socialism-involves-slavery

The main characteristic of collectivism is that it does not take notice of the individual’s will and moral self-determination. In the light of its philosophy the individual is born into a collective and it is “natural” and proper for him to behave as members of this collective are expected to behave. Expected by whom? Of course, by those individuals to whom…the task of determining the collective will and directing the actions of the collective has been entrusted. --Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), _The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science_ cited in _The Quotable Mises_

Friday 24 February 2017

Quotes 25 Feb 17 - socialism (1)

Warning - political content today.

There is no moral distinction between petty thievery and "from each according to ability, to each according to need," as practiced by the State, which is to say, there is no moral distinction between the act of a pick­pocket and the progressive in­come tax, TVA, federal aid to ed­ucation, subsidies to farmers, or whatever. There is only a legal distinction. Legalizing evil does not affect its moral content; it does no more than to absolve the moral offender from the type of penalties inflicted by policemen. - Leonard Read (1898-1983), "We Never Had It So Good" (Nov. 1, 1960) https://fee.org/articles/we-never-had-it-so-good/  ( AFAIK TVA is Tennessee Valley Authority,a federal project and the writer sees to object to federal funding of this and education. I would add death duty (inheritance tax) to government theft.

The first socialists were the intellectuals; they and not the masses are the backbone of Socialism. - Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), "Socialism and the Battle of Ideas" https://mises.org/blog/socialism-and-battle-ideas 

Socialism produces poverty but only as a byproduct of fantasy.  Fantasy is the feedstock.  Poverty is only one of several distillates. -- Richard Fernandez, from Twitter

Thursday 23 February 2017

Quotes 24Feb 17

God has made His children, by adoption, nearer to Himself than the angels. The angels are friends of Christ; believers are His members - Thomas Watson.

Look back and thank God
Look forward and trust God
He closes doors no man can open and
He opens doors no man can close....-Unknown

Through God we can turn our endings into beginnings. –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God’s grace rarely operates according to our schedule.- Tim Keller Wisdom ‏@DailyKeller

Talent is formed in stillness; character, in the storms of the world. –Wolfgang Goethe

Wednesday 22 February 2017

Quotes for 23 Feb 17

In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me that self that I had lost. Created first and then restored, I owe Him myself twice over in return for myself.-. Bernard of Clarivaux

There are two things of which a good pastor should be careful; to be diligent in teaching, and to keep himself pure.- John Calvin ‏@JohnCalvinDaily

My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service, Princess Elizabeth promised in 1947 on her 21st birthday.

Tuesday 21 February 2017

Quotes 22 Feb 17

No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger. --John Chrysostom

Never shout at one another unless the house is on fire - Pastor's Puritan quote on marriage,…..

There are not two but three certainties in human affairs, death, taxes and jihad. - Robert Spencer, Islam Unveiled

Monday 20 February 2017

Quotes 21 Feb 17

The Book of Leviticus explains how it is possible for the holy God to reside among sinful people.~ Dr. Mark F. Rooker's "Leviticus" ~

No scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses. a man asking why his days are short and full of suffering is not disposed to turn to algebraic quantum field theory for the answer. The answers that prominent scientific figures HAVE offered are remarkable in their shallowness. - David Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions"

The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years.- John Piper

Sunday 19 February 2017

Quotes 20 Feb 17

Since the Bible teaches that life in the womb is human life, one cannot accept abortion without denying the authority and truth of Scripture in practice. Francis Schaeffer

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits. - Chesterton

My take on tithing in America is that it's a middle-class way of robbing God. Tithing to the church and spending the rest on your family is not a Christian goal. It's a diversion. The real issue is: How shall we use God's trust fund - namely, all we have - for His glory? In a world with so much misery, what lifestyle should we call our people to live? What example are we setting?- John Piper

Friday 17 February 2017

18 Feb 17

It is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on ground other than religious ones (TGD, 2006, p. 266). -Richard Dawkins

Surely it is worthwhile to lay ourselves out with all our might in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ. William Carey

All theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious.- John Calvin ‏@JohnCalvinDai

Thursday 16 February 2017

17 Feb 17

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.- William James

I . . . hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land. . . . I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. . . .I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me
We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members.
The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. . . .
The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master.
Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.
Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise. - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845, sixteen years before the Civil War began.

Wednesday 15 February 2017

Quotes for 16 Feb 17

If our sins are as high as the mountains, the ocean of His atonement is like Noah's flood, covering the utmost summit - Spurgeon

Brave men run in our family. - Captain Beaky

The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate. Burke's famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that his duty to party organization or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there in no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy.- Winston Churchill

Tuesday 14 February 2017

Quotes 15 Feb 17

Do you love to be loved or do you love because you are loved? - Tim Keller Wisdom ‏@DailyKeller

A theologian who undervalues Logic, as being little necessary to him, simply disarms himself. This was by no means the practice of our older theologians. They always emphasized most strongly the study of formal logic, together with its related arts.- Abraham Kuyper
·
Paul writes to the Phillipian church from prison, but what is amazing is the joy he expresses and encourages the Phillipians to express while still in prison. We see this in Phil.1:4, 5, 18, 25 and 26. Paul says in vs 25 in vs 26 "And being confident of this I know that I shall remain and continue with you for all your progress and joy of faith, 26 that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again." May we never allow the enemy to steal our joy. Our joy must not be a function of what we have or don't have, but despite our circumstances, know that our joy comes from our Lord.- Wayne Thring

Monday 13 February 2017

14 Feb 17

Why did John Calvin preach eight times a week in Geneva? Eight times a week! How did he make the time? Was he not writing commentaries on almost every book of the Bible? Was he not writing treatises on numerous theological and pastoral subjects? Was he not the Reformation’s premier letter writer, writing to hundreds of Christians, kings, queens and nobles as well as pastors and their families? Eight times a week!
Calvin did not think he was doing anything extraordinary in preaching eight (sometimes more) times a week. He was persuaded that if the church was to survive in a hostile world, bombarded on all sides by siren voices saying, ‘Don’t be so serious. Lighten up. Return to Mother Church (Rome)’, God’s people needed to be saturated in the Word of God.
With other Reformers, Calvin believed that only being exposed to God’s Word once or twice a week did little to resist the relentless diet of false illusions emanating from the world. He was persuaded that Christians needed all the time they could give to hearing God’s Word tear down the world’s false illusions.
I wonder if Calvin’s thinking resonates with you. We live in a culture full to overflowing with false illusions. Our TVs and the media as a whole are seeking to deceive us (there are always honourable exceptions). Relentlessly the message goes out, dressed up so seductively, ‘Without this, life is dull. Without this, you are missing out. With this, life will overflow with joy. Join this and you will never be the same man, woman, again.’ And so the litany goes on. ‘This is life’ the music and style icons relentlessly tell us, until we are drugged into thinking it might just be so.
In Romans 12:2, Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. He is telling us that if our minds are not being renewed, then we will be squeezed into the mould of this fallen, passing world. Perhaps more than any previous generation of Christians, this generation needs to be saturated in the wisdom, grace, goodness and health-giving clarity of God’s truth. We need our minds de-cluttered and then refreshed by the ‘wisdom from above’ (James 3:15).
We live in a world of deceptive illusions, powerful, seductive illusions that are out to ensnare us and kill us. Calvin was absolutely right: we need every given opportunity to hear God’s living, clarifying, deception-scattering Word.
So my question to you is this: Do you prize every given opportunity to hear God’s Word in your church? You could read this as a rebuke, and in measure you might be right. But see this rather as a loving exhortation to hunt out every opportunity to sit under the ministry of God’s Word. Not because I am worth hearing; but because God himself speaks to us by his Spirit through his Word.
I have a very good friend in the USA who was accused by some church members of being ‘legalistic’ because he encouraged them not to be satisfied with coming to worship once a week. My dear friends, his encouragement was not legalistic, it was the kind, thoughtful, caring encouragement of a pastor set apart to care for Christ’s sheep. May we all be like the Psalmist who wrote, ‘I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”’~ Ian Hamilton, Pastor of the Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, UK.

Sunday 12 February 2017

13 Feb 2017

Meditation on the future life is a primary mark of a Christian.- John Calvin ‏

Only one thing really matters from the moment you become a Christian until the day you see Jesus, that you walk worthy of Him. What you own, what you know, and what you do for a living are not all that important. John MacArthur

Friday 10 February 2017

11 Feb 17

Another part of reality that liberals and progressives find difficult to accept is the fact that equality among humans is the exception and inequality the norm. If one were to list the world's top 30 violinists of the 20th century, at least 20 of them would be of Jewish ancestry. Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners. One wonders what liberals would propose to promote equality in violin excellence and winning a Nobel Prize. ~ Dr. Walter Williams, "The Liberal Struggle Against Reality"

Supposing a man were exposed in his own house to the danger of fire, hostile attack or robbery, but had a safe place somewhere else or had a friend whom he could trust. If he gave him his treasure for safe-keeping, he would not run back every minute of the day to inspect it or to sort through it piece by piece; he would rest content. Such a man would be happy to leave all he had in the hands of his friend, because even after a year he would still trust him. It is the same with God. He keeps careful watch over our salvation, which if left to us would be greatly at risk. The devil would soon snatch it away, but God has his eye on it and keeps it safe. He is its guardian. How then can we be said to honour him if we do not trust him to keep it firm and secure?’ - John Calvin

Thursday 9 February 2017

10 Feb 17

1.Great Father of glory, how rich is your grace,
what wonderful love is displayed in your face!
In Jesus your visible image we view,
and hope to be made in his likeness anew.

2. In Jesus we’re chosen, we’re washed in his blood;
our sins all forgiven, at peace with our God!
And more, we’re adopted; God’s sons we appear,
and led by the Spirit we boldly draw near.

3. The world knows us not, but in this we rejoice,
to God we’re not strangers, but sons of his choice;
his love from eternity gave us a home,
where now we are longing in safety to come.

4. To seal our adoption God sent from on high
his Spirit, through whom, ‘Abba, Father,’ we cry;
and yet, with creation, we wait eagerly
for final adoption and bodies set free.

5. All praise to our Saviour, who paid the great price,
he calls us his brothers, we’re co-heirs with Christ!
We’re sons of the Father, he calls us his own,
and what we shall be has not yet been made known.
Andrew King (Praise 795) to tune of Montgomery.

Wednesday 8 February 2017

9 Feb 17 - Coronation

Here he (the archbishop) says: “Receive this orb set under the cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer.- Coronation liturgy

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?- Coronation oath

Tuesday 7 February 2017

8 Feb 17

PRAYER is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.― D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

We picture idolatry as the worship of something evil. However, most of our idols are good servants that we have made lords - @MichaelHorton_

Monday 6 February 2017

7 Feb 17

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.
- Robert E. Lee, 1807 - 1870

Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law are applied to humans allowing them to be classified as property,[to be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and they cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement. While a person is a slave, the owner is entitled to the productivity of the slave's labour, without any remuneration. The rights and protection of the slave may be regulated by laws and customs in a particular time and place, and a person may become a slave from the time of their capture, purchase or birth.- Unknown origin

Sunday 5 February 2017

6 Feb 17

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.- Edmund Burke, 1728 - 1797

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.- Edmund Burke, 1728 - 1797

Friday 3 February 2017

4 Feb 17


To love anyone is nothing else than to wish that person good.--Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)

In fact most of the social pathology exhibited by the underclass has its origins in ideas that have filtered down from the intelligentsia. Of nothing is this more true than the system of sexual relations that now prevails in the underclass, with the result that 70 per cent of the births in my hospital are now illegitimate...The climate of moral, cultural, and intellectual relativism, a relativism that began as a mere fashionable plaything for the intellectuals, has been successfully communicated to those least able to resist its devastating practical effects. - T. Dalrymple

Thursday 2 February 2017

3 Feb 17

He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet in the grave. - Matthew Henry

The pious man and the atheist always talk of religion; the one speaks of what he loves, and the other of what he fears. --Baron de Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat) (1689—1755) _The Spirit of the Laws_, vol. 2, bk. XXV, ch. I [1748]

Wednesday 1 February 2017

2 Feb 17

The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human 
baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to 
talk like any other child. The more you think about 
it, the more staggering it gets.  Nothing in fiction 
is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation. 
     --J.I. Packer (1926-    ) 
      _Knowing God_ [1973] 

Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things 
in which they were thought to be strongest.  Moses 
failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah 
in his courage, for one woman scared him away to 
that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was 
boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny 
his Lord. 
     --Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) 
      (In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert's 
      _Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers_ [1895])